Beyond their visceral disdain for freedom of expression, the Bush administration is now seeking ways to reign in its growing legions of heretofore unregulated critics in the blogosphere. -{lex}

http://kurtnimmo.com/blog/index.php?p=687

Down the Long (or short) Road to Regulating Political BlogsKurt NimmoMay 31, 2005

Leave it up to the United States government to wreck a good thing?especially a good thing they consider a threat to their monopoly on news and information.

?Web loggers, who pride themselves on freewheeling political activism, might face new federal rules on candidate endorsements, online fundraising and political ads, though bloggers who don?t take money from political groups would not be affected,? reports the Chicago Tribune. ?The FEC long has been reluctant to craft rules for the Internet, and it has exempted the online world from many regulations that apply to other media such as television and radio. But a court ruling last fall required the agency to include the Internet in its definition of public communications and to begin regulating activities there.?

Of course, this is nothing new, as noted above, but it appears the idea is picking up steam. It should also be noted the proposed regulation impacts only blogs that endorse political candidates or blogs that ?take money? from political war chests, something this blog does not do (because both parties are pimps for the established order). On the other hand, considering how both government officials and their corporate bosses have an irksome tendency to use the law as a cudgel to pummel those who oppose them, it is not much of a stretch to imagine another law down the pike designed to stifle the free political speech of those they consider malcontents, conspiracy mongers, and dangerous ?terrorist? troublemakers. As it now stands, the corporate media, to the say the least, is collectively miffed at political bloggers, who they feel are encroaching in their god-given (or government-given) territory. It is alarming to the alphabet soup media corporations that they are realizing a drop in readership and page views as people go elsewhere for their news and information.

Finally, it is indicative that a government dominated by Republicans (and Republican-like Democrats)?who disingenuously believe government should be reduced ?down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub,? as Republican Bushite (and Strausscon AEI flunky) Grover Norquist so famously declared?who find nothing wrong with repressive big government, so long as it is used to annihilate the opposition, especially an opposition vociferously against the all-war-all-the-time agenda, a resumption of nuclear testing and proliferation, and wanton violations of international law.